A lesson for Chris Christie from Richard Nixon

By David Frum, CNN Contributor

Updated 1819 GMT (0219 HKT) January 13, 2014

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was not indicted as part of the Bridgegate scandal. But one of his appointees pled guilty and 2 former staffers face criminal charges.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – David Wildstein, a former top Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey pleaded guilty to one charge of conspiracy to commit fraud on federally funded property and one civil rights violation.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Bridget Anne Kelly, Gov. Chris Christie deputy chief of staff, was fired when her e-mail about it being time for "traffic in Fort Lee" became the center of the scandal. She has been charged with nine criminal counts, including conspiracy and fraud.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Bill Baroni was executive deputy director of the Port Authority until he resigned amid the scandal in December 2014. He has been charged them with nine criminal counts, including conspiracy and fraud.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer claims New Jersey Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno approached her in a parking lot last May and told her that Sandy recovery aid for her town depended on her support of a redevelopment project backed by the governor.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in the Christie controversies – Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno denies telling Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer that her town's Superstorm Sandy relief money depended on her support for a redevelopment project proposed by a company with ties to Gov. Chris Christie that he had backed.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in the Christie controversies – Maria Comella, a deputy chief of staff in Christie's office, had been monitoring the media reaction weeks after the George Washington Bridge traffic fiasco. She has been subpoenaed as part of the state legislative investigation.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie controversies – Randy Mastro, a former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former deputy mayor of New York, will head the legal team representing the Christie administration in various investigations relating to the George Washington Bridge political scandal. He once a the federal racketeering lawsuit that forced the International Brotherhood of Teamsters to hold democratic elections and undergo court supervision.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Reid Schar, a key figure in the federal prosecution of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, will assist the special state Assembly committee investigating the bridge scandal that has engulfed current and former aides of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey, a Democrat, said he was concerned about the bidding process for using $25 million in Superstorm Sandy relief funds for a marketing campaign to promote tourism at the Jersey Shore.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – E-mails suggest that Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich was the apparent target of an alleged political payback scheme involving traffic jams around the George Washington Bridge. He met with Chris Christie in early January to discuss the matter, and said the governor was "gracious and apologetic."

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – New Jersey Democratic Assemblyman John Wisniewski is chairman of the special state Assembly committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal. The panel has subpoenaed current and former top Christie aides as well members of his political organization, seeking documents and other materials. Chris Christie has not been subpoenaed but his office has.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Michael Drewniak, Christie's chief spokesman, has been subpoenaed by a special state Assembly committee investigating the George Washington Bridge scandal. It is seeking documents and other materials. Although there is nothing to suggest Drewniak was involved in the scandal, e-mails released by investigators show he met with a key figure, David Wildstein, two days before Wildstein resigned from his job as a top Christie appointee at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – David Samson, Port Authority chairman, said its board had no knowledge of the George Washington Bridge traffic jam mess until five days after the fact. He has been subpoenaed by the state assembly committee and is also a partner and founding member of Wolff & Samson, the law firm that represented the Rockefeller Group in the Hoboken redevelopment plan.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Patrick Foye, the executive director of the Port Authority, said access lane closures that resulted in the George Washington Bridge traffic mess didn't follow proper agency protocols. He ordered the lanes reopened and has been subpoenaed by the state Assembly committee as part of its investigation into the bridge scandal.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, a Democrat who also didn't endorse Christie, has raised his own suspicions about his cooled relationship with the administration.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – New Jersey Senate Majority Leader Loretta Weinberg, a Democrat, has been pressing for information about the scandal.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Democrat Barbara Buono is a New Jersey state senator who challenged Chris Christie this past November and lost in a landslide. She derided Christie during the campaign as representing "the worst combination of bully and bossism," and she brought up the George Washington Bridge traffic mess as an example.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Bill Stepien managed Chris Christie's two successful campaigns for govenor. E-mails suggest he was aware of the bridge lane closures, and Christie has asked him to give up his political role. He, too, has been subpoenaed by the state committee investigating the matter.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – Scott Rechler, vice chairman of the Port Authority's board of commissioners, e-mailed other representatives of the agency saying he was disturbed that traffic was snarled "without regard to this being the Jewish high holiday weekend" last September. Rechler was appointed by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

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Who's who in Christie bridge scandal21 photos

Who's who in Christie bridge scandal – E-mails suggest Regina Egea, then a senior staffer and the governor's point person to the Port Authority and other agencies, was aware of concerns the George Washington Bridge lane closures were not part of an ongoing traffic study as the Christie administration initially claimed. She's now Christie's incoming chief of staff and has also been subpoenaed by the state Assembly committee.

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Story highlights

David Frum: Chris Christie's team broke rules to gain revenge against opponent

He says question for governor is whether he can learn from this episode

Running for president is a test of character, Frum says; can Christie overcome his flaws?

Frum: Ex-President Nixon realized too late that hating his opponents was his undoing

"Obama did worse." "Christie's toast."

Those are the two main things media commentators, from the right and the left, said about New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie this week. Together, they expose the carelessness of the way we talk and think about the people who aspire to the presidency.

Start from this point: Many on Christie's staff are implicated in an abuse of power that inflicted harm upon tens of thousands of people.

David Frum

Perhaps the governor didn't know that his staffers had gleefully ordered a traffic disruption on the George Washington Bridge last year. There is no evidence that he did know. On the other hand, these were the people the governor had chosen. This was the culture of the office he led.

The phrase "the buck stops here" -- used by the governor at his news conference last week -- doesn't just mean the boss makes the final decision. It means the boss accepts blame for things that go wrong, just as he gains credit from things that go right. It means that "I didn't know" is not an acceptable excuse.

But now proceed to this point: Almost everybody who seeks the presidency has demons to slay on his or her way to the office. The long road to the highest office in the land is a contest not only against political rivals but against the flaws of a candidate's own character and temperament.

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We all have such flaws. In would-be presidents, they tend to be outsized and to carry outsized importance. What we are looking for in a president is not a person without such flaws but a person who has struggled with them and overcome them.

When a politician gets into trouble, as Christie has done, pundits suddenly decide that it's their job to mimic crisis managers. They offer advice on what the politician should say, what gestures he should offer, so as to escape blame and deflect criticism.

But what matters after an episode like the bridge story is not the show of contrition but the real lessons learned. Trouble now can even be a politician's friend, if it jolts him off a path leading to worse trouble later.

What Christie faces in the bridge uproar is not a communications challenge but a personal growth challenge. Can this combative politician recruit and run a team that understands better what is acceptable in political combat -- and what is not?

At his news conference after the damning bridge e-mails came to light, Christie repeatedly denounced the abuse of conduct as contrary to his personal standards. Can he enforce higher standards in the future?

Christie has a style and sensibility that has brought him far as a politician. He's just received a sharp warning that this style and sensibility will take him no further. Conflict is intrinsic to politics -- but conflict governed by rules, written and unwritten.

Christie's team broke the rules to score revenge against a political opponent. Would a Christie White House govern the country in the same score-settling way? Even people inclined to support Christie are now wondering. His future will depend on convincing people that he's learned his lesson and changed his ways, and the best way to convince people that you have learned a lesson is actually to learn that lesson and actually to change your ways.

At the end of his own career, Richard Nixon delivered an eloquent self-assessment of his own failure as president: "Always remember others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself." Unlike Nixon, Christie can benefit from that wisdom at the beginning of a presidential career rather than at its tragic end.